The present invention relates to support members and a gear drive for protective roll-type shutter or awning, and the like.
Security-type shutters and awnings comprising a plurality of slats made of extruded aluminum, or other material, hingedly interlocked at each edge, and which can be rolled away by winding around a drum or about a rotatable shaft, are generally provided with a gear drive for the drum or rotatable shaft, which also functions as a support member and journal means for an end of the rotatable shaft. Such an arrangement is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,294,302, assigned to the same assignee as the present application.
The gear drive for the rotatable shaft of the shutter or awning device has a driving shaft which is capable of being directly driven in rotation by a handcrank, or by a second shaft in turn hand or power driven through a second gear drive. The gear drive is enclosed in a housing, and the driven shaft and driving shaft are generally coupled by means of a pair of bevel gears having their axes of rotation disposed in a plane at right angle to each other. The journal bearings supporting respectively the driving shaft and the driven shaft are supported through the walls of the housing, at fixed location, such that the relative orientation of the driven and driving shaft is dictated by the design of the gear box, and there is no adjustment provided for the relative angular orientation of the shafts. Furthermore, the bevel gears generally provide a one-to-one gear ratio, which requires considerable manual effort for cranking heavy shutter assemblies, and the gear drive is reversible, which requires that some locking means be provided, even though some attempts may be made at counterbalancing the weight of the closed shutter.